Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro not only won re-election three weeks ago but also ended up with a $1,441 high-definition TV bought with taxpayer matching funds.

In one of the little-known benefits of the campaign finance system, candidates get to keep any “hard goods” remaining after Election Day, including computers, printers and furniture.

One Green Party contender even has a taxpayer-funded bicycle, albeit a cheap $130 one.

No one questions that computers and other equipment are essential to many campaigns, which generally get into high gear in June. But red flags are popping up over big-ticket purchases made as late as October, when campaigns were in the homestretch.

“It’s legitimate to question the timing, the use and the nature of equipment bought with public funds,” said Gene Russianoff, an attorney for the New York Public Interest Research Group. “The question I would have for a candidate is: Why do you need a high-definition TV?”

The $1,441 TV that ended up in Molinaro’s campaign headquarters was logged in Oct. 10, less than a month before voters went to the polls.

A Molinaro aide said the large-screen set was needed because it had to serve 65 campaign staffers. But it’s not clear why only a high-tech model would do.

In the borough president’s defense, an aide said he was returning $130,000 of the $596,660 he’d collected in matching funds. The aide said the high-resolution TV was now “in storage.”

Records show City Councilman Andrew Lanza (R-S.I.), who got $82,500 in matching funds, bought more than $3,000 worth of computer equipment at Costco last month.

Lanza told The Post the items were actually bought earlier.

Lanza said his campaign HQ was so ramshackle that he was wary of installing electronic equipment there until a roof leak could be patched.

Rodney Carroll, an unsuccessful candidate in the multi-candidate Harlem council Democratic primary won by Inez Dickens, bought a $910 Dell computer. Records show he paid for it on Sept. 12 – one day before the primary.

Carroll, who received $72,420 in matching funds, couldn’t be reached for comment.

Neither could Robyn Sklar, who ran on the Green Party line for a Queens council seat and listed a $130 “campaign bicycle” in her expenditures.